The Tattooed Face

(i)

Where did you get that face?
Where did you get it painted?
It’s such a visible disgrace
You’ll be forever tainted.
Tattoos on arms
Add to your charms
When they are nicely traced,
But folk will stare
And everywhere
Say where’d you get that face?

Where did you get that face?
You’re like an animal;
You don’t even have to grimace
To look insufferable.
A coal black savage
May with tribal scars his looks debase,
But a white man ever
Looks dumb, not clever,
With tattoos on his face.

(ii)

We saw two of them in quick succession;
The first one appeared to have relented slightly,
For there were hideous scars on his forehead
Where a couple of blemishes had obviously been removed.
He, it, didn’t stay long;
It nutted a screw in the face, broke his nose,
And was shipped out to a closed nick
Where they don’t stand for such nonsense, (probably Wandsworth).
The second one had a mask inked on across its eyes and nose,
Swastikas on the back of its head,
And some sort of insignia on its dome,
Inscribed with the legend: “Made in London”.

They both of them made one feel ashamed to be British,
Ashamed to be white,
Ashamed to be human.